


there's only you between us

by trampoleans



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Prom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28787199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trampoleans/pseuds/trampoleans
Summary: just some cutesy stuff i worked on when i was feeling down.hope you enjoy, leave a comment if you do, i'd love to hear it xx





	there's only you between us

"Hey, what are you doing out here on your own? You okay?" The water makes empty noises as he slides his feet into it.

"I'll be okay. Is that a good enough answer?" I purse my lips at how I failed to avoid his question properly.

"What's up?" He props himself on his hands, makes himself comfortable. 

"I guess I'm being childish, but there's talk that my crush is currently shagging my friend somewhere." I mutter the ending. 

"Who said that? It's probably shit talk." I know for a fact that it is, but that doesn't make it any less unsettling. 

"His friends." I kick my foot in the pool and water splashes around.

"Yup," he states, now sure of himself. "It's most likely just boyish teasing. Anyway, I wasn't aware you had a crush." He says it with a tone that leaves the subject open for conversation and explanations. His left eyebrow raises in that way that it always does and it makes me smile, like it always does.

"Me neither. Until today that is. I found out hours ago, so you're the second person to know really." I wink at him playfully and he chuckles.

"Glad I have that honor," he replies with an equally amused tone.

During a few selected seconds, settles upon us the blissful sound of silence, only interrupted by the regular rattling of the pool or the occasional owl in the dark.

"You can... Go back to the party of you'd like. Really, don't feel like you need to stay here and guard me or something. I'm not going to do anything stupid if that's what worries you." I send him and a smile without knowing why, but he does the same. He surely has the ability to read the situation better than I.

"Or you could come back in with me," he tries.

"See, that sentence deserves a certain precision." Turning to face him, I add, "when you say come back with me, do you mean going inside and hanging out or is it more of a 'seeing me back to safety' and then returning to your friends?" Even if it wasn't his intention when he asked, the latter is most probable, no matter how much I try to find the one scenario in which the first actually happens.

"I hadn't thought about that." He states and his shoulders fall as if he hadn't expected so little of himself.

"It's fine." I pat him on the back forgivingly. "I'm good here. Don't worry."

"No, I kind of want to stay. Although you seem to think I'd rather be somewhere else." He puts it out there like a question, obviously awaiting an answer.

"It's just that I know I'm being quite the party-pooper right now, which is why I went out in the first place. Also, I couldn't think."

"What about?" My face says everything because he starts talking again. "Oh yeah, your crush and your friend. By the way, do I know him?"

"You should, we have spent the last five years with the same people. Is there anyone at the party you don't know by name or at least by their face?" He shakes his head. "Well then, you know him... In some way."

Before I can think better or twice about it, I stand up and unzip the dress I'm wearing, the one everyone makes such a fuss about.

"What are you doing?" He looks up at me and I don't know why he asks. There aren't so many things that involve stripping to your underwear and a large swimming pool.

I grab the bright piece of clothing right before it can rest on the floor and get stained. "I feel like freshening up. You should come." I throw the garment on a beach chair. I make sure I don't look into his caramel eyes, afraid of what I might or might not find.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

Sucking in my tummy and then turn around, I put my hands on my hips and pretend to scold him. "I promise to stay in the shallow end. I'm sober. I can swim. My hair isn't long enough to get stuck anywhere and besides, you're here. You can save me or call for help. Anything else?"

When he doesn't object, I jump. I jump like I've wanted, no needed, to jump all night. The more I let myself sink, the more I feel like I'm changing worlds and it feels so good that for a minute or two, I forget where I am.

The second I'm back at the surface, I witness him taking off his tuxedo jacket and leaving it under my too-long dress. He unbuttons his dress shirt, revealing this chest I've never seen. Then, he slips out his perfectly ironed navy pants that blend with the shade of the sky. He drops gracefully in the tub of salted water to meet me where my feet touch the bottom, where my head seems like it touches the roof that is dotted with stars.

"I didn't picture you as the girl who took off her clothes in public to swim." With my best taunting expression ever, I shrug.

"Nobody really knows the girl I am." I distance myself, smiling mysteriously.

"I can understand that I didn't know all of you after only those seven days of intensive friendship," he winks, I shudder. Then he smirks, reminiscent of our time in April. "But you're seventeen, you have parents, family, friends. Is it even possible that no one got to the middle of your universe?"

"Oh, yeah. It is. Trust me." Somehow, I've gravitated towards him, but I can't say I'm displeased.

"It must be lonely." I almost miss his whispers when the music from inside roars louder than before.

"It is less lonely than alone, it's not always that bad." I feel more vulnerable than ever, admitting this for the first time, admitting this to him.

"Is that why nobody knows about this guy you like? I mean, you must've had the chance to tell someone more than once especially today."

"That's different." I can tell my emotions are out of control because I start chuckling, not nervously, but out of nervousness. "I haven't told anyone because I know they're all rooting for her."

The dark blond brows below his forehead come close like I've never seen. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"It's really not that complicated. She made her crush very public, I haven't. She has spent more time with him than I have. She's fucking pretty and funny and she didn't shit her pants at the thought of literally chasing after him, so she's the better match and it's so obvious that no one can miss it."

"How can you think so poorly of yourself? You're nothing less than she is, from what you've described her." 

"How, you ask? Try being that one girl no one but her close family and friends ever called pretty. That girl that no one ever liked or asked out or asked about. No ones ever made a move on me, but every single girl I know," I start speaking louder, carried away by emotions rather than sensible thoughts. "Everyone has been confessed to or kissed."

I try to slow myself down, but the ragged and irregular flow of my breath doesn't let me have any peace. "I'm so pathetic that the only action I got was from you after I asked!! Bloody hell! I had to get up and ask because I'm so fucking invisible that no one would've done anything otherwise. If you put me in a room with twenty guys and a blow up doll, I'm sure they'd go for it instead of me." I sniffled and submerged myself to properly hide my awakened tears.

"Tell me, how could you think anything about yourself in my case? How would it make you feel?" I say when I'm next to him again. I hear nothing, so I look his way and when I take the heavy meaning of his eyes, I'm petrified, horrified.

Not because of pity or amusement. I am frozen in place because I see myself for what I am. I see a little girl smaller than the world who has no more tears and hides herself in every way she possibly can.

He can't seem to speak, but he drifts towards me and soon his hands cradle my face, his thumbs rub my cheeks.

"Why are you doing that?" I mumble, scared that if I speak louder he might stop.

"I'm wiping your tears," he replies distractedly and his movements grow more gentle, but don't come to an end.

"But I'm not crying," I whisper. "Am I?" I could be, maybe I just didn't realize.

"Not right now, but you have. I know you have, you've cried so much and sadly I don't think you're quite done yet. That's why I'm wiping them away in advance. That way, even if I'm not with you next time, I'll at least have done this for you."

I can't help the widening of my eyes or the hug I force him into.

He speaks into my ear. "This may not be what you need to hear, but do you really need boys to tell you you're pretty and to recognize that you're amazing? Don't you think the only voice that should truly matter is yours?"

I pull away with a grin. "You're sweet, you know that?" The corners of my lips fall as I say the next words. "You're right. It only matters if I have a good esteem of myself, but it can only take so long before a person starts wondering why she's the only one who has to do all the loving when others have help with it."

Sniffling again, I swim on my back and marvel at the few twinkling stars I can see from this well lit part of the city.

He calls me. Repeatedly. I stop midway. "Come here."

"Why?" I resist.

"Come on. Come closer."

"What for?" The tears form in my eyes again as if they can sense that I'm about to suffer.

"There's something I have to tell you." That is the single worst thing anyone can say to me, in my experience, anything that follows is bad and occasionally too painful for my heart.

"Come," he says again and despite my intuition, I do. I am pulled into his arms, onto his lap. He looks at me dead in the eye.

"It's you that I like." The syllables march out with a purpose, but they mean nothing to me. I discard them with a laugh.

"No. You don't, but thanks. You do know how to make me laugh when I'm sad." I splash water at him, but he doesn't budge.

"I'm serious. I have a crush on you. A huge one at that."

"Okay, you can stop now. I know what you're doing and I know I said I want to feel loved, but you don't need to lie. I need something genuine," I break out of his embrace. "I know you mean well, but if anything lying will hurt me."

"You're not listening. You know I'm telling the truth." He swims towards me slowly. "She hasn't got anything on you, not for me at least. You don't get how much I liked those seven days with you. Well I, myself, didn't know either until she came. She spoke to me and all I could hear was that she wasn't you. I realized how badly I loved hearing you go on about your family or tell me bad jokes with your head in my lap at lunch. I loved meeting you in secret and glancing at you during class."

"Don't," I interrupted. "You were doing so well. We were going to have a lovely evening, say goodbye and see each other in ten years. You'll regret making all of this up. Stop. Please."

He didn't pay any attention to my pleas. "I didn't know what to think when you offered to get to know each other for a week and then to kiss. I thought you were kidding or that it was a dare, but I am so glad I said yes."

"Why would you say this now?" I yelled. "It's been six weeks!"

"How could I have known you liked me? You said yourself you only found out today."

"I had a feeling that I liked you before, but does that matter? People ask other people out without knowing if they reciprocate all the time. You could have done that," I accuse.

"It's not the same. When we left things, you asked me to be friends. Just friends! You shook me hand for Pete's sake. You told me it was 'a nice experience', then you thanked me for my time. The message was clear."

My head is spinning. I know he isn't wrong, but that doesn't make the timing of his confession any more right. "I didn't... I wanted..." I sighed. "Why are you doing this?"

"I want you. You and everything we had. It's not too late. It's the end of high school, not the end of our lives." He meets me on the side of the pool and cups my face for the second time time this evening. "We shouldn't have stopped. I should have pushed your handshake away and kissed you again and again until you understood what I felt." He speaks for himself, acknowledging his mistakes.

Then, it's like something clicks. He looks at me with an intensity I've only read about in books. Thousands of small particles tickle my insides. If he doesn't hold me, I will most likely glide to a certain death into the water because I am unable to move. The most radiant smile appears on his beautiful face as he realizes and, leaning in, he says, "I can still do that. I can still make you mine." And he crashes his lips into mine, like he's promised to do.

**Author's Note:**

> just some cutesy stuff i worked on when i was feeling down.  
> hope you enjoy, leave a comment if you do, i'd love to hear it xx


End file.
